Fruit of the Tree
by ShinMarsDragon
Summary: You can run as far away as you can and still end up right where you started.


_"And God gave all the fruits of the Garden to Adam and Eve, save one. He forbade them from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil...you know this story, don't you?"_

* * *

He was not surprised when he felt his father's presence on the land. Tired and annoyed, but not surprised. He had been a fool to believe, even for a few years, that something so small as true death could stop Dracula.

It was not hard to find the small house where the blessed couple lived. It was not hard to step lightly around the edges until he found the correct room. It was easy to flow in as mist.

Alucard watched the infant sleep. Not even three days old, probably unbaptized...but it could not be helped. If God did not have provisions for unbaptized children with evil souls, then he would simply have to do this again. The dark lord could not be allowed to return.

He found a small pillow and placed it over the babe's face.

"Stop this." Skeletal fingers closed over his wrist before he could press down. Beneath them, the infant began to shift, hiccuping in preparation for a cry.

"You-!" Alucard snarled and tried to shove the pillow down, but Death's grip tightened and it was not enough to cut off the infant's air.

"This is to neither of our benefits," the Reaper said as the infant began to wail in earnest.

Explaining himself to the parents would take time and patience he didn't have, and Alucard was not in the habit of exposing his presence to the masses of humanity. He threw the pillow down and followed Death from the house.

Behind them, the babe bearing Dracula's soul cried and cried.

A few blocks away, sheltered from bright streetlights by the well-laden branches of an apple tree in some anonymous garden, Alucard faced Death with his sword raised. He held himself back from attacking by the thinnest edge of control. "There had better be a very good explanation for this."

The Reaper floated lightly, his tattered robes waving in the air. His skull, to those with the skill to read it, showed casual unconcern. "As I said, your actions would bring neither of us benefit."

"I care not for what profits you. If killing the reincarnation would harm your plans, then that is enough reason to do it."

"So short-sighted." Death clicked the tongue he did not have. "The prophecy is still unfolding, Alucard. A new master will come to the castle in eighteen years. You may take the chance on any of the fools that gained a fraction of my master's power when he died...or we may work together to ensure a situation that may benefit us both."

Alucard's hand tightened on his sword. "I told you-"

"_Listen_. The true reincarnation comes to the castle. If he takes the throne, the creatures will support him, for he will then be the true master. But if he refuses..."

"...the throne will be vacant, and we buy time and defenders to keep it such." The blade lowered slowly as Alucard considered. "So we cooperate in competition."

"Exactly. I am glad you are still able to be reasonable." The faintest tinge of sarcasm slipped through the bland words.

"And I am glad you still show such loyalty to your dead master. It's quite touching." Alucard let a small smile slip through at the way Death's fingers closed on his scythe. "Very well, I agree to your proposal. I'll take care of the groundwork in the human world if you can convince the castle to allow this."

"Fools scheme and plot in the shadows, but no loyal creature wishes another on the dark lord's throne." Death spoke with the conviction of one who personally determined who was loyal. "This will hold off pretenders like Orlox and Galamoth until the true successor appears. That is also to your benefit."

"It's true that I do not wish to see either of them take power," Alucard said as he put his sword away. He kept one hand free for spellcasting. Death was loyal and honest in his own way, but Alucard had not survived so long by being trusting. "Let me also assure you that I have no desire for the throne either."

"No one would accept you," Death said, sharp as his blades.

The lonely wind blew cool through the night, ruffling Alucard's hair and Death's robe. They watched each other, two creatures that had known each other long enough for all affection to fade.

"I will make contact if I need you," Alucard broke the silence.

"Likewise. For now then, farewell, son of my master." Death nodded his skull in a way that could almost be taken as respectful, then folded together and disappeared. The scythe went last.

Alucard leaned against the tree and watched the polluted, starless sky between its shifting branches. After this he would have much work to do to win Death's little game. Organizations to contact, pieces to move into place, plans to execute... Unbidden, his mind brought up an image of riding Death's shoulders through the castle, laughing all the way. He shook the memory away, idly reaching out to the ripening fruit instead. The skin was dusty under his fingers.

It was funny. The apples nowadays were without question larger and brighter than the ones he had picked from the villager's trees as a child, but he could not tell if they were sweeter.

* * *

_"But there were two trees. One was the knowledge of evil, which cast man away from God. The other was of life, which brings man back. And that can only mean...?"_

* * *

Alucard - Arikado, he reminded himself, he had to get used to that now - came home to his small, bare room and threw himself on the closed coffin with a sigh. Humans were so frustrating.

He had gotten what he wanted, but it had cost him. The castle would appear in Japan in 2035. Therefore, he had to have a free hand in Japan. Unfortunately, the time was far past when he could simply do as he pleased and rely on the local lord being too far away to care. Now everything and everyone had to be counted, entered, tabulated and calculated or it was not considered to exist. Even him.

Forgers were so _expensive_ these days. He'd been forced to ask Death for part of the castle's treasure, a fact the Reaper would never let him forget.

It was worth it, even at the price of his dignity. He took out the tiny, simple little card and looked at it with tired eyes. His new name and identity, which he could then use in convincing the slow, hidebound Japanese government to accept him enough that, in a few years, he would be granted the freedom to do what was necessary. Genya Arikado, born September 8th, Heisei 11, to perfectly ordinary parents in a perfectly ordinary town with a perfectly ordinary birth certificate.

Age, height, weight...Alucard had never concerned himself with them before. They were trivia, useless. Now they defined him. The idea was disturbing, having all he was reduced to little numbers and letters on a bit of paper. A man, himself, turned into something that could be passed around at will.

The thought frustrated him enough to drag himself to the kitchen for a glass of wine. He did not add any blood. The lack would make him sick, but it was important. Humans drank unblooded wine. He was no longer a creature of the darkness, and to show that he would not mix his wine.

He sat down at the desk this time and lit the candles. The soft, dim light was a balm on his eyes after hours under stabbing electric lights. Humans again. Fire was not good enough, so they tamed lightning. All so they could work through the hours they should by all rights be sleeping...

_Theirs is a hard lot_, he internally scolded himself. It was time to stop complaining and get to work.

* * *

_"Right, love. Love not just for the creatures you know so well, but also the humans that live in the villages around the castle. Yes, yes, but you have friends there, don't you?"_

* * *

The boy left, hurrying away on his mission. Arikado gave him five minutes before running back to the temporary safety of the gate and another ten before venturing forth again. Mina woke up, as he knew she would, and Arikado gave her as much explanation he would give before taking his leave. He, too, had business in the castle.

"Thank the skeletons for me. They performed well." He spoke to empty air on top of the outer wall and knew Death would hear him.

"They have lodged a formal complaint," Death replied, his chill voice floating down from behind and above Arikado. "Creatures do not appreciate being called forth just to die by the hand of a traitor...nor to being enslaved in the mind of one who does not know them."

"And who do they complain to? Their master is dead." Arikado smiled at the rustling behind him and knew his barb had hit home. He continued without hidden edges in his words. "I will return their souls to chaos, as agreed. Tell the rest that this is all to their benefit."

"If it was not so we would not be cooperating with you." The Reaper slid into the edges of Arikado's vision like a miasma. His skull had an ironic tilt to it as he spoke his next words. "Do you know why Leon Belmont went to the vampire's castle?"

"To rescue his beloved. Dracula told me." He remembered old wine and his father's voice, and shifted away from the memory. He should think the Belmont's version, the brave story of their ancestors, not Dracula's cursèd words.

"Did he ever tell you it was he who had put the maiden in danger in the first place?"

Arikado's hands tightened, but his voice remained calm and steady. "...shut up. You want this as much as I do."

He was nothing like Dracula. His very name proved it. He had made himself into the opposite of his evil father, and none of Death's sly implications could change that.

He wished for his sword, but he was too old and the world too changed to settle honor with blades. A pity.

"If I did not I would not have proposed the bargain," Death said, irony falling away to indifference. "Keep your little pawns in line and we will handle the rest. You'll have the run of the castle again."

"I cannot imagine the army of the night fallen enough that an untrained boy, a young witch, and an amnesiac would be any trouble at all."

"We'll see." Death shouldered his scythe and looked into the distance. "I shall be waiting at the summit of the clock tower if you need me."

Arikado raised an eyebrow. "You'll fight the boy you're trying to place on the throne? Have you changed your bets to the other candidate?"

He had expected every bone in Death's body to speak of rage. Instead the Reaper gripped his scythe and spoke with painful conviction.

"He is not my master."

_Not yet?_ rose to Arikado's lips and died unspoken. So did all his other swipes and bitter blows. Something unnameable twisted in his stomach at seeing even the briefest glimpse of Death's raw grief, and left him fumbling for a response that would not come.

The boy was not - not Dracula, he was most certainly that, but he was not the blood mad monster Alucard had followed and faced in battle, nor was he the affectionate, scholarly father that hid at the edges of well-buried memories. He was -

"Suit yourself," Arikado found himself saying, and allowed the words to continue. "I will wait behind the throne. Which of us will handle the other candidate?" The irritating American who walked as if he had the right to the castle when he was behind even Arikado in the line of succession...there would be words with the agency about having allowed him anywhere near the Hakuba Shrine. Sharp words, to make up for sharp blades.

"If you cannot find use for him you learned less from my master than I thought," Death said, grief vanished as if it had never been. "Farewell."

Then he was gone, and Arikado was alone on the wall. The blood-red moon shone with light that came from no sun, painting the stone in warm, familiar hues, and a chorus of bats squeaked at the edge of his hearing. They sounded happy. Simple creatures who eagerly awaited the promised return of their master.

Arikado turned away from them. He could not flutter around thoughtlessly when there was so much work to be done. The humans would need food… Bread from the kitchens, perhaps. Enough to keep them alive long enough for his plan to work, and delivering it would give him an excuse to prod the boy on the correct path to hell. He'd have to push Yoko off the scent - simple enough, with the pretender around, and...

He left the wall, a plan already forming in his mind.

* * *

_"It doesn't matter they call you cursed. Everyone is fallen, and everyone can be redeemed. I believe that completely. I know that one day, just as the lion will lay down with the lamb, so too will vampires lay down with humans."_

* * *

The gardens were cool and dark, almost restful compared to the blinding lights of a modern human city. Arikado sat on the smooth marble edge of a fountain and listened to the distant lowing of gorgons under the ever-present thunder of hooves. He didn't drop his guard, but he allowed the soft shadows and flowing water to lull him into something like relaxation.

A pair of crows fought for space on the tree above him, and he watched them with quiet disinterest. Forward and back the red wings flapped as their owners feinted and pecked in equal measure, their raucous caws echoing throughout the garden. Their struggle dropped fruit from the tree, and Arikado reached out to catch it as both combatants finally reached a peace at the opposite ends of the branch.

A fig. He had not thought there were any normal trees left here, but it seemed he was wrong. There was a time when he had scrambled among branches, eating bits of fruit and washing them down with blood.

Those were fond memories of a cursed time, and Arikado buried them quickly. He tossed the fruit away to be crushed by the horsemen without tasting it.

The horsemen took no notice. They rode up and down on their rotting steeds, singing their warsongs with no care for anything else. The songs were all about their poor destroyed fellows and how they would strike back with righteous fury upon the living and bring about the reign of night, the same as they had been singing for the past five hundred years. Fools.

They allowed themselves to race along a path that led nowhere and soak in bitterness because they were too blinded by hatred to do otherwise. All they had left was their war, though the instigators had long ago abandoned them in death. And so they cursed and railed against the inevitable.

It was a favor to destroy them.

He was ever glad he had turned away from that path. His mother's will had guided him away from his father's bloody fate, and he would fight as long and hard as it took to make sure the mistakes of the past were never repeated. Even this short rest was too long.

But he stayed there by the fountain for a few minutes more, listening to the steady rhythm of hooves. It was so much more pleasant than the dull roar of engines.

* * *

_"Just as long as you never forget the fruit of the tree, love, you will not be led astray."_

* * *

The roof of the clock tower did not offer the best view, but it was difficult to see from the hallway to chaos and that was worth the price. Arikado balanced himself on the steep pitch and watched the battle of 1999 play out again, so familiar and so strange. The boy was obviously neither knight nor sorcerer, but something of Dracula remained in the swing of his arm and the cadence of his voice. It set Arikado's teeth on edge.

"The Belmont has reawakened, I see."

Arikado didn't turn to Death while he replied. "So he did."

"I wonder who told him about the boy? It was my understanding that even after regaining his memories, he did not know the truth."

It hadn't been hard for Arikado to track Julius down. It had been difficult to convince him of the truth, but that was reluctance to turn on an acquaintance, not a lack of duty. Once he believed what his senses told him, he had been off to stop the boy without any further prompting from Arikado. And with Yoko down, there was no one to beg him to stop.

The other candidate had been useful after all. It had been simple to arrange for him and Yoko to meet, and all Arikado had to do was stay out of the way until the boy arrived. Two birds with one stone. Somewhat regrettable, but sentiment was ever the slave of necessity.

Death still hovered as if he was actually waiting for a reply. Arikado spared him a cool glance and nothing more. "Don't ask questions you know the answers to."

"My apologies." Death's tone was anything but apologetic.

"Are you upset about losing?"

The Reaper floated closer, and his chill spread across Arikado's back. "Have I lost? He still must face Chaos itself. All the childish vows in the world will not help him overcome that. Here."

The large, red ball only barely missed being smeared across the distant ground. Clasping it in both hands, Arikado brought Death's gift up to look at it. "A pomegranate?"

"You still require human food, do you not? Consider it a gift between allies before we part again."

The symbolism was not lost on Arikado, but he thanked Death with icy politeness and cracked the fruit open to reveal the deep garnet pips within. He was hungry, after all.

The first pip burst on his tongue as Julius took a solid blow from the boy's dark blade. It cut deep, and Arikado could almost believe he smelled the Belmont's bright blood over the pomegranate's juice. The boy was forced back a second later, and the battle raged on.

"If the Belmont wins, you have lost," Arikado said, and ate another pip.

"Is that why you did it? Very neat. But if the boy kills him then you have lost a far greater piece. I do not believe that man has any children."

He didn't, the absolute fool. Arikado cursed himself for not watching more closely and arranging something, anything, to make sure the Belmont line continued. He could not rely on the Morrises again. But he allowed none of that to show in his voice when he replied. "For all his faults, the boy is not a murderer." His reaction to the other candidate's death had shown that.

"I am impressed at the depths of your foresight." They watched as the Vampire Killer struck the boy's skull, sending him reeling backwards. The third pip crunched between Arikado's teeth. Death continued, his words idle and cold. "I am reminded of when your father stood before me for the first time and explained his plan to gain mastery of the Crimson Stone."

Arikado could not keep the snarl out of his voice. "_Do not compare me to him._" He ate a fourth pip while he regained mastery of his emotions, and ignored the sly tilt to the Reaper's skull. "Yes, I used Julius, Mina, Yoko, and Soma. What of it? I have a greater purpose than eternally damning my soul."

He had to fulfill his mother's wish. He had to stop the resurrection of the dark lord. Nothing else mattered.

"Of course." There was no challenge in Death's words, and that was worse than arguing.

Unbidden, Arikado remembered the look in Dracula's eyes when Julius had struck the final blow and the endless cycle was finally broken. It had not been anger, nor hatred, nor fear. When he had stood before the broken form of the dark lord and his father had pressed the Crimson Stone into his numb fingers, there had been nothing but pathetic, desperate relief in those golden eyes.

_"Do not mourn, my son. I..."_

Arikado had held no intention of doing so, and none had arisen in the ensuing years. He swallowed the fifth pip to settle the roiling pit in his stomach and saw the grand cross rise from Julius, burning with holy light.

"I do have one question." The light of the cross only emphasized the shadows of Death's skull. "Do you still love? No...do you even remember how?"

The sixth pip painted Arikado's silent lips a bright, living red.

Julius fell.

It was all necessity, in the end.

* * *

**A/N**: Useful fics for how I tend to portray the Tepeses: In a Castle, What Profit to a Man, Tangled Up Gears, and the post-SotN Dracula chapter of Legion (saint). Of those, only the first and last are on FFN, the other two are on AO3.

I actually wrote Al a little more unfeeling than I believe is strictly in-character. Consider it characterization backlash. But seriously, he obviously set up the entire drama at the beginning of AoS and I absolutely wouldn't put sacrificing Yoko past him.

Thanks to my beta, Piinutbutter.


End file.
